" Shodo Harada Roshi compares the original mind of human beings, the mind we have at birth, with a clean mirror, pure and uncluttered, with nothing whatsoever - without shape, form or color. If something comes before it, the mirror reflects it, but the mirror itself gives birth to nothing. If the reflected object leaves, its image disappears, but the mirror itself loses nothing. Within the mirror there is no birth, no death. No matter how dirty the thing reflected, the mirror does not get dirty, nor does it become beautiful because something beautiful is reflected in it. The mirror doesn't get dirty, clean or beautiful. Just because something is reflected doesn't mean anything increases in it either, nor does anything ever decrease. A mirror is without increase or decrease."
- Women Facing Retirement, A Time for Self-Reflection
